The strategic importance of Roraima
Roraima is the northernmost State of Brazil. It has an area of 224,000 square kilometers and a population of just over 400,000 people. It is a very low density, less than 2 inhabitants per square kilometer. It is practically almost uninhabited, except for the capital Boa Vista, where 75% of the entire population is located.
Roraima is very rich in gold and many other minerals; Its jungles are considered to be among the most biodiverse in the world, and it is also one of the areas of the planet where the most valuable substance of all for man is found in abundance (billions of tons): water.
Since the time of the Spanish conquistadors, Roraima attracted dozens of adventurers who aimed to appropriate the enormous gold riches, but the orographic, environmental and logistical difficulties to conquer and exploit this portion of the Amazon were so great that almost all organized expeditions failed.
The first rumors about an area rich in gold and precious stones, located beyond high mountains, reached the governor of Margarita Island, in Venezuela, around 1570.
The indigenous people spoke of a large lake called Manoa (in the Arawak language) or Parime (in Caribbean language). Both words meant great lake, but some researchers maintain that Manoah could mean Noah's harbor, Noah's water, or simply flood.
The natives told the conquerors that in the area of the great lake there was a developed civilization that used gold a lot.
The Spanish immediately thought of the famous myth of El Dorado, a legend that originated in present-day Colombia, in Lake Guatavita.
The first explorer who entered the Venezuelan jungle in search of Manoa was the Spanish Antonio de Berrío in 1584. He explored several tributaries of the Orinoco and Caroní, but he did not manage to cross the mountains called Pacaraima, beyond which according to the indigenous people the lake was located. He even made a second expedition in 1591, but it was unsuccessful.
The second adventurer who entered the Caroní jungle was the Englishman Walter Raleigh, but he also failed in the attempt. However, the data he provided helped the Englishman Thomas Harriot to prepare his famous map of 1599, in which the lake is illustrated.
Some subalterns of Berrío and Raleigh, such as Domingo de Vera and Pedro Maraver in 1593, and Laurence Keymis in 1596, still arrived at the place where the Venezuela-Brazil border is located today and were astonished to see that the indigenous people used large quantities of gold to decorate themselves, but they could not continue due to lack of men and means.
The last expedition that approached the area of the supposed Lake of Manoa was that of the Englishman Thomas Roe, in 1611. The Englishman decided that since it was so extremely difficult to cross the Pacaraima mountains starting from Venezuela, it would be better to travel the course of the Amazon River ascending the rivers, at that time totally unexplored, that would lead him to Manoa. It is said that the adventurer went up the Río Negro and also a part of the Río Branco, but that he later had to give up, since his supplies had run out and he was entering an area of dangerous natives.
In this way, Roraima remained intangible for another century: no one had managed to discover its secrets and explore the shores of the mythical Lake Manoa or Parime. Its very existence was totally shrouded in mystery and legend. The maps of European cartographers in subsequent centuries continued to show the lake, but no one had verified in the field its true existence or that of Manoah, the supposedly developed civilization located on its shores.
It was then the Portuguese who, having colonized a large part of the Amazon basin, managed to enter the north of the Branco River (a tributary of the Negro River).
Indeed, starting in 1669, with the founding of the Forte de São José da Barra do Rio Negro (later called Manaus), the Portuguese began to colonize the area where the Rio Negro meets the Amazon River. Some headed further north, deep into the jungle, trying to go up the rivers, as Thomas Roe actually did in 1611.
The first explorers to cross the Bem Querer waterfall, located in the middle course of the Branco River, were Cristóvão Aires Botelho and Lourenço Belfort, in 1706. Then, starting in 1710, the adventurer Francisco Ferreira together with Lourenço Belfort and the Carmelite father Fray Jerônimo Coelho, explored the Alto Río Branco in the attempt to capture indigenous people to later send them as slaves to Belem do For.
None of them, however, found the great Lake of Manoa, which the Spanish had fantasized about for centuries. No trace of the lake or of the stone city that, according to legends, would have hidden ancient knowledge, as well as immense treasures.
Starting in 1741, both the Dutch and the Spanish began to make daring incursions into present-day Roraima. The Dutchman Nicolau Horstman, entering through what is now Suriname, tried to imprison indigenous people to later sell them as slaves. On the other hand, the Spanish, who had never abandoned the idea of finding El Dorado, managed, in 1771, to enter from Venezuela into the basin of the upper Uraricoera (Old Poison River, initial branch of the Branco River). They later founded several fortresses such as Santa Rosa, San Juan Batista de Cada Cada and Santa Bárbara, and concentrated their efforts on searching for Manoa in the Rupununi River basin.
The Portuguese did not accept external presences in what they considered territory subject to their dominion and they clashed harshly with the Spanish.
Subsequently, in 1775, the Lusitanians founded the Forte de São Joaquim, at the confluence of the Tacutú River with the Uraricoera. The goal was to supervise the valley, thus preventing external incursions.
But the legend of Manoa had already spread throughout Europe and also in the 19th century other adventurers took on the task of trying to find the mythical city of gold.
During the end of the 19th century, the Brazilian adventurer Major Dionisio Evangelista Cerqueira wrote upon returning from a daring expedition in the upper Uraricoera:
The upper Uraricoera is so remote, mysterious and dominated by hordes of Maracána, Krixána and other tribes of the Parime mountain range, that it will remain inaccessible to the white man and shrouded in mystery for many more centuries.Any adventurer who risks exploring these inhospitable impenetrable jungles will pay with their life or return without having achieved the objective of their expedition.
In 1835, the German Robert Schomburg, who was traveling in the service of the British Crown, explored the Rupununi, ascended the Uraricoera to its sources and entered Venezuela. He then returned to Brazil descending through the Casiquiare natural channel and entering the Río Negro. He had contact with the Macuxí, Wapixaná, Sapará, Wayumara and Yanomami indigenous people.
Schomburg's objective was precise: he had to inspect the terrain in order to capture which were the mining areas and what type of minerals could be extracted.
In the 19th century, some European powers, and in particular the British Crown, had well understood that Roraima was very rich in gold and other strategic minerals. Some Protestant missionaries, among whom were Thomas Yound, were sent to the Pirara area, officially belonging to Brazil. Schomburg had made maps of the area and declared that it was ruled by independent tribes, since it had not been colonized by Brazil.
He pointed out a new border that would annex the territory of English Guiana about 16,900 square kilometers (including the Rupununi basin).
It was a diplomatic case full of controversy that lasted many years, until the Pirara dispute was resolved with international arbitration whose judge was the King of Italy Victorio Emanuel III. The decision, which favored the British Crown, was taken in 1904. Brazil could not do anything other than accept the loss of its territory, probably also because it was pressured by the failure of trade agreements for the export of other raw materials.
The Anglo-Saxons continued to be interested in Roraima also in the 20th century, for example with the expedition of the American Hamilton Rice, the first to use modern means such as the seaplane (a Curtis Sea Gull) and radio.
Starting in 1980, Roraima was invaded by thousands of garimpeiros (gold diggers). Gold production grew exponentially from 161 kg in 1985 to more than 5 tons in the early 90s. However, in Roraima there is not only gold, but also uranium, thorium, cobalt molybdenum, diamonds, titanium and niobium, the latter being important for electronic productions. Diamond production grew from 7,000 to 100,000 carats in the period between 1985 and 1991.
However, the presence of the garimpeiros in the valleys west of Roraima brought many problems to the area, both environmental and social. The garimpeiros are very violent and it was the indigenous population (especially the Yanomami ) that paid the price, as they were subjected to massacres and abuses, in addition to having their vital territory taken away. Likewise, the garimpeiros contaminated the region's rivers with mercury for years, using archaic techniques to extract gold from the material obtained from the excavation.
Also after these sad events, the federal government of Brazil created indigenous areas in order to preserve the culture and territory of the natives. Today, in Roraima there are 23 indigenous areas with a total of 127,000 square kilometers. For example, the Yanomami indigenous area , where only 15,000 natives live, has an area larger than that of Portugal (94,000 square kilometers).
Lately, the demarcation of the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous area (17,474 square kilometers) caused much controversy, since many Brazilians had to abandon their properties, which were confiscated when their land was declared indigenous. However, the fact that the natives are very few and that the majority of them have long ago lost their culture and their original language, only causes perplexity.
Some Brazilian researchers think that there is a clear project behind the demarcations of immense indigenous areas. According to these independent opinions, the indigenous and environmentalist cause would be a mere pretext to control enormous strategic areas that are closed to any journalist or simply curious, in order to later carry out mining and biodiverse prospecting and control one of the most important regions in the world from the water point of view.
Several Brazilians believe that, in fact, more or less what happened in the 19th century when the British Crown and Brazil disputed the Pirara area is happening. According to the latter, several foreign NGOs would operate in indigenous areas that would carry out studies on biodiversity and mining resources at the service of foreign states.
Although certainly the positive thing about the large demarcations of indigenous land is the impossibility (at least officially) of deforestation, the question remains as to whether the enormous resources of these lands will be exploited for the benefit of a few or whether they will be made available to all.
During the five centuries that have passed since the official entry of Europeans to America, Roraima was always a little explored and unknown territory. Traces of Manoa were lost, but lately the Chilean explorer Roland Stevenson seems to have found the ancient traces of Lake Manoa, which is now dry. After studying the territory, with the help of some geologists, Stevenson was able to verify that in all the hills and mountains that surround the Boa Vista savannah, a recurring sign can be found, located approximately 120 meters above sea level. It is the sign that indicates the level of the old lake.
The geologists belonging to Stevenson's team, Federico and Salomão Cruz and Gert Woeltye, deduced, after studying the soil and the pollens from the flowers, that the savannah was formerly an enormous lake that had a diameter of 400 kilometers and an approximate area of 80,000 square kilometers. According to these researchers, it would have begun to dry out around the 16th century AD.
If the lake really existed at that time, should the stories of the natives who described the city in the vicinity of the water mirror perhaps be considered true?
Probably more than a city, Manoah was a confederation of tribes, but the last word on this fascinating story has yet to be spoken.
YURI LEVERATTO
